When you can't deny emergency care to people, it just makes sense to pay for it collectively. Extending emergency care to basic care is just good business sense.

If you don't want to pay for the health care of your neighbour's children, on moral reasons, do it for selfish reasons because it is actually cheaper than a private insurance model.

What you have in the US, is people paying twice as much to ensure that not everyone has access to health care. You have to be a prick and stupid to support the private insurance model for basic health care.

By 1947, Saskatchewan had one of the strongest economies in Canada. After just three years as premier, Douglas made the province financially stable enough to introduce universal hospitalization for all residents of Saskatchewan for an annual fee of $5.

It goes against all the whining from the right in the US about government control and health care killing the economy.

Vodka Zombie:Americans are far too greedy to ever allow a sensible or humane health care system to exist in their country. It'll never happen. It will always be nothing but a destructive mess of bureaucracy.

You will get it one State at a time. In the mean time it will suck for many people and will be very expensive. Plus, it is also hurting the competitiveness of your small businesses. It is the single biggest trade advantage Canada has with the US right now.

mrshowrules:Vodka Zombie: Americans are far too greedy to ever allow a sensible or humane health care system to exist in their country. It'll never happen. It will always be nothing but a destructive mess of bureaucracy.

You will get it one State at a time. In the mean time it will suck for many people and will be very expensive. Plus, it is also hurting the competitiveness of your small businesses. It is the single biggest trade advantage Canada has with the US right now.

Well, in order for any sensible reform to actually happen in America (and not just health care, but pretty much everything), we must first figure out how to make it profitable and who will profit from it.

Vodka Zombie:Well, in order for any sensible reform to actually happen in America (and not just health care, but pretty much everything), we must first figure out how to make it profitable and who will profit from it.

At the risk of being stoned as a heritic, not everything has to turn a profit.

strathcona:Vodka Zombie: Well, in order for any sensible reform to actually happen in America (and not just health care, but pretty much everything), we must first figure out how to make it profitable and who will profit from it.

At the risk of being stoned as a heritic, not everything has to turn a profit.

strathcona:Vodka Zombie: Well, in order for any sensible reform to actually happen in America (and not just health care, but pretty much everything), we must first figure out how to make it profitable and who will profit from it.

At the risk of being stoned as a heritic, not everything has to turn a profit.

The government's job isn't to turn a profit. It's to provide essential services to its populace... services like police, military, a legal system, and roads

By 1947, Saskatchewan had one of the strongest economies in Canada. After just three years as premier, Douglas made the province financially stable enough to introduce universal hospitalization for all residents of Saskatchewan for an annual fee of $5.

It goes against all the whining from the right in the US about government control and health care killing the economy.

While it would be nice to believe that it was Douglas' policies that led to this budget surplus, it's important to note that oil was discovered in SK in 1943. Government revenues jumped not insignificantly during Douglas' time in office. While he managed them commendably, one wonders how history would have viewed him, and Medicare, if the social experiment had happened to have timed out with a recession in the province.

I suppose it's not an unfair comparison, at least in the sense that Rae got an economic downturn at precisely the same time that he was making changes, and people connected the two. That said, I don't recall anything about Rae's initiatives that were as singularly transformative like Medicare was. But I'm not an Ontarian, so I'm probably not the best judge of it.

sweetmelissa31:Tommy never forgot the experience. A medical crisis could affect anyone -what would happen to the people who weren't as lucky as he had been?

"The Greatest American" would have said "I got mine."

One of the great things about living in a free country is, you get what you deserve. So we never have to say "I got mine", because of course we do.There are some people who do not seem happy with their mines. Those people should focus on deserving more and complaining less,

Tommy Douglas is considered a national hero and deservedly so. It speaks volumes about his incredible legacy that so many Canadians value, very highly, the healthcare system that Douglas helped create.

rumpelstiltskin:sweetmelissa31: Tommy never forgot the experience. A medical crisis could affect anyone -what would happen to the people who weren't as lucky as he had been?

"The Greatest American" would have said "I got mine."

One of the great things about living in a free country is, you get what you deserve. So we never have to say "I got mine", because of course we do.There are some people who do not seem happy with their mines. Those people should focus on deserving more and complaining less,

I think Republicans actually believe that. I guess those Goldman Sachs bankers who sold worthless derivatives deserved all that money they made from it.

rumpelstiltskin:sweetmelissa31: Tommy never forgot the experience. A medical crisis could affect anyone -what would happen to the people who weren't as lucky as he had been?

"The Greatest American" would have said "I got mine."

One of the great things about living in a free country is, you get what you deserve. So we never have to say "I got mine", because of course we do.There are some people who do not seem happy with their mines. Those people should focus on deserving more and complaining less,

Yes, especially cancer. People who get cancer totally deserve it. And if, even with insurance, their health care costs eat through their children's college funds that they have worked very hard to build, the brats deserve that, for daring to have a parent who deserves to get cancer. And should they lose all of their savings, and have to sell their home just to stay alive, they deserve that, too. Hard working families deserve to lose everything because they deserve to get cancer, but Paris Hilton deserves to have everything and anything she desires because she is of such benefit to society.

Douglas was a Scotsman from the same generation as my grandfather (who I never met, as he died in 1952). They were a generation who knew real hard times.

My grandfather was a driver on the London Midland and Scotland Railway for forty years. My mother remembers standing with him outside the pay office in Glasgow Central Station on Fridays (payday, and people were paid in cash in those days) in the mid-1930s. He would be collecting pennies in his cap for employees who were off sick. There was no sick pay.

By 1947, Saskatchewan had one of the strongest economies in Canada. After just three years as premier, Douglas made the province financially stable enough to introduce universal hospitalization for all residents of Saskatchewan for an annual fee of $5.

It goes against all the whining from the right in the US about government control and health care killing the economy.

Douglas was a Scotsman from the same generation as my grandfather (who I never met, as he died in 1952). They were a generation who knew real hard times.

My grandfather was a driver on the London Midland and Scotland Railway for forty years. My mother remembers standing with him outside the pay office in Glasgow Central Station on Fridays (payday, and people were paid in cash in those days) in the mid-1930s. He would be collecting pennies in his cap for employees who were off sick. There was no sick pay.

My late dad was a child in the 1930's. He lived on a farm in Nova Scotia. One story that made an impression on him at the time and later with me was when the Father with his wife and two kids, knocked on their door and offered to work on their farm all day for a hot meal. Goes to your observation about the generation we are talking about.

Objectively comparing nationalized healthcare to other countries that have had nationalized healthcare is un'merican. Well unless you're totally making shi@t up like old people having to wear bracelets so they don't get killed and other cool things Hannity talks about.

unyon:While it would be nice to believe that it was Douglas' policies that led to this budget surplus, it's important to note that oil was discovered in SK in 1943. Government revenues jumped not insignificantly during Douglas' time in office. While he managed them commendably, one wonders how history would have viewed him, and Medicare, if the social experiment had happened to have timed out with a recession in the province.

namegoeshere:Yes, especially cancer. People who get cancer totally deserve it. And if, even with insurance, their health care costs eat through their children's college funds that they have worked very hard to build, the brats deserve that, for daring to have a parent who deserves to get cancer. And should they lose all of their savings, and have to sell their home just to stay alive, they deserve that, too. Hard working families deserve to lose everything because they deserve to get cancer, but Paris Hilton deserves to have everything and anything she desires because she is of such benefit to society.

Some people who choose a lifestyle of sloth, obesity and alcoholism will get cancer and yes, they deserve it. As a society, we have removed the penalty of failure from those who:

Refuse to workChoose to have children they cannot affordsee others as responsible for their poor decisionsRefuse to take responsibility for their health

and then you call conservatives "heartless" who wonder how they got roped into subsidizing someone else's willful failure. Just ask yourself, do the recipients give a damn about who provides healthcare for them or do they feel that they are owed it because they exist?

The extreme circumstances of cancer, temporary destitution and other medical emergencies are not bankrupting this country or bankrupting the social services programs.

o5iiawah:namegoeshere: Yes, especially cancer. People who get cancer totally deserve it. And if, even with insurance, their health care costs eat through their children's college funds that they have worked very hard to build, the brats deserve that, for daring to have a parent who deserves to get cancer. And should they lose all of their savings, and have to sell their home just to stay alive, they deserve that, too. Hard working families deserve to lose everything because they deserve to get cancer, but Paris Hilton deserves to have everything and anything she desires because she is of such benefit to society.

Some people who choose a lifestyle of sloth, obesity and alcoholism will get cancer and yes, they deserve it. As a society, we have removed the penalty of failure from those who:

Refuse to workChoose to have children they cannot affordsee others as responsible for their poor decisionsRefuse to take responsibility for their health

and then you call conservatives "heartless" who wonder how they got roped into subsidizing someone else's willful failure. Just ask yourself, do the recipients give a damn about who provides healthcare for them or do they feel that they are owed it because they exist?

The extreme circumstances of cancer, temporary destitution and other medical emergencies are not bankrupting this country or bankrupting the social services programs.

This is, of course, all stated under the false premise that conservatives don't help themselves to large amounts of tax payer money for their own willful failures.

There's nothing from stopping a state from enacting a single payer/socialized healthcare system, If it worked so well, a state would have made it successful by now and others would have followed.

Except that, you would get alot of sick/poor people moving to that State. I always supported single-payer managed by the State (not the Feds) but Feds legislating the requirement for all citizens to have access to basic health care (universal health care).